breve
/bɹiːv/
"breve" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“breve” is uncommon English (frequency #83,075 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #83,075
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A semicircular diacritical mark (˘) placed above a vowel, commonly used to mark its quantity as short.
Corpus desk
Index EN-breve · breve · English
breve · rank #83,075 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #83,075
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH Buenaventura
Nearest frequency peer: Buenaventura (+3 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “breve”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- bourdon
bourdon
16,933 corpus weight
- Braniff
Braniff
16,930 corpus weight
- breve
breve
16,926 corpus weight
- Buenaventura
Buenaventura
16,923 corpus weight
- Buganda
Buganda
16,922 corpus weight
- Bukhara
Bukhara
16,921 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “breve” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | breve |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɹiːv/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #83,075 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “breve” in English
Rare enough to double-check
breve is uncommon English at frequency #83,075 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /bɹiːv/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
breve has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English breve, variant of bref, from Old French brieve, breve (feminine form of brief, bref), from Latin brevis (“short”). The correct English form is breve, spelled B-R-E-V-E.
Definition
- 1A semicircular diacritical mark (˘) placed above a vowel, commonly used to mark its quantity as short.
- 2A double whole note; a note twice as long as a semibreve.
- 3Any writ or precept under seal, issued out of any court.
- 4A pitta, all of which have more or less short tails.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how breve appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
But what, are you puzzling in your pockets to seek your only memorial among old play bills, letters requesting a meeting of the Faculty, rules of the Speculative Society, syllabus' of lectures—all the miscellaneous contents of a young lawyer's pocket, which contains every thing but brieves and bank-notes?
Etymology
From Middle English breve, variant of bref, from Old French brieve, breve (feminine form of brief, bref), from Latin brevis (“short”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "breve", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).